I’ve been playing tennis a very long time.   Competitively to a degree (tournaments, rankings – mine was pretty low).   As I’ve gotten older I don’t play as much, as well, or as much singles as I once did.   I still can play a little I like to think.  A good friend of mine who is as passionate about tennis as am I (perhaps more so), kept bugging me to subscribe to the Tennis Channel since it was offered by my cable provider – Cablevision and he was a subscriber already. 

 It was not all that much.  $ 6.00/month.   My wife is frequently agitated by the cable bill as we have several televisions and cable boxes associated.  So we cut back on the service for one of the TV’s making the Tennis Channel no more of an outlay than before. 

The Tennis Channel is indeed way cool.  More than 75% of the time when I pass through the channel there is actually – Tennis.  Some match from some time – usually a good one, is on and I invariably stop and watch.  Even if I know the outcome!  I do not do that for any other sport.  Like I noted – I really like tennis. 

There are occasional programs on the Tennis Channel that do not feature people playing tennis.  But even then they have some relevance to the game and that’s why I am watching that channel in the first place. 

The point is – there is a somewhat limited audience that would actually pay to have a network offer programming as does the Tennis Channel.  The Golf Channel tries but for whatever reason does not do it quite as well.  And I also like to play golf and have actually watched the Golf Channel and would actually rather play golf than tennis if I could.  The Tennis Channel gets it right.  Geeky enough that only true Tennis fans could appreciate Nastase-Pohman at the 1975 U.S. Open at Forest Hills.  

It can be done.   Narrow appeal yet dedicated audience.  Give them what they want and they will seek you out.    Give it a try.